The Influence of Emotion in Healthcare Decision-Making Processes

This report explores the significant impact of emotions on decision-making processes within the healthcare sector. It begins by establishing a research philosophy rooted in interpretivism, emphasizing the social construction of reality and the use of qualitative methods. The study employs interviews and focus groups as primary data collection methods, involving nurses, patient representatives, and doctors to gather diverse perspectives. The data analysis techniques involve coding and preliminary data analysis to identify key themes and sub-themes, with a focus on understanding how emotions influence choices. Ethical considerations, including confidentiality, anonymity, and informed consent, are carefully addressed throughout the research process. The report highlights the importance of understanding the role of emotions to improve healthcare decision support tools and enhance patient care. The report examines the impact of emotions on decision-making processes within the healthcare sector. It begins by establishing a research philosophy rooted in interpretivism, emphasizing the social construction of reality and the use of qualitative methods. The study employs interviews and focus groups as primary data collection methods, involving nurses, patient representatives, and doctors to gather diverse perspectives. The data analysis techniques involve coding and preliminary data analysis to identify key themes and sub-themes, with a focus on understanding how emotions influence choices. Ethical considerations, including confidentiality, anonymity, and informed consent, are carefully addressed throughout the research process. The report highlights the importance of understanding the role of emotions to improve healthcare decision support tools and enhance patient care.

Running head: IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING: A STUDY OF HEALTHCARE
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
Introduction
In the era of increasing number of health care consumers, understanding the role of
behavioral science is very crucial. The decisions taken by the health care professionals and the
families can affect the trajectory, quality and the length of a person's life (Lobach et al.2012).
Logical and rational thinking in decision making does not leave much room for emotions.
Decision making in terms of health care can involve emotions and increase complications.
Making decisions about health care is quite complex, as issues sometimes involve problems that
one is not used to thinking about in their day- to-day lives. The intensity of the decision making
is normally magnified when life threatening illness is involved (Dovidio and Fiske 2012). This
part of the paper will provide with a research philosophy, suitable collection methods and the
analysis of the collected data that will help to explore the roles of emotions in the decision
making process.
Research philosophy
A research philosophy is a belief about the means by which the information about a
research question is gathered, analyzed and interpreted (Barry and Edgman-Levitan 2012). In
general research philosophy in a research proposal should include pragmatism, positivism,
realism and interpretivism. Research philosophy normally consists of source, nature and
development of the knowledge (Maxwell 2012). Each step of the research process is on the basis
of the assumption of the author which serves as the base of the search strategy. A research
philosophy enables the author to decide which method of the data collection has to be conducted
suitable for the research (Miles et al. 2013). The research paradigm that has been selected for this

2IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
research proposal can be interpretivism paradigm (Grbich 2012). Interpretive approaches depend
heavily on the naturalistic methods of data collection like interviewing, findings, analyzing and
interpretation. In a word mainly qualitative methods are used in this process. The methods ensure
that there is an adequate dialogue between the researches and the participants for the construction
of a meaningful reality (Fusch and Ness 2015). Interpretivism is generally based on a theory.
Research philosophy enables the researcher to decide which method of the data collection has to
be conducted suitable for the research. The research paradigm that has been selected for this
research proposal can be interpretivism paradigm, Theoretical belief that reality is socially
constructed and is fluid. Hence from this the validity of the data cannot be grounded in an
objective reality (Maxwell 2012).
An interpretivist perspective generally evaluates researches on the basis of following
grounds. It considers careful articulation of the research proposal (Miles et al. 2013). It considers
that the research is considered in a careful manner. The interpretivism follows the following
beliefs regarding the nature o the knowing and the reality (Maxwell 2012).
Relativist ontology refers to the fact that reality is constructed inter-subjectively with the
help of the understandings that has been developed socially or experientially. Whereas the
transactional epistemology refers to the fact that one cannot separate himself from what the
world knows (Fusch and Ness 2015).
Hence, the chosen research paradigm for this research proposal ought to be intepretivism
as the research question is based on the impact of emotions of making decisions in health care,
which requires sample interviews, and the qualitative analysis of the findings and finally
interpretation (Grbich 2012).

3IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
Data collection methods
This research will use the two most common process of data collection - the interviews
and the focus groups. Interviews help to explore the experiences, views and the beliefs of the
participants (Cleary et al. 2014). Focus group generally uses group dynamics for generating the
qualitative data. Interviews help to provide a deeper insight of the thoughts of individuals on a
topic, where little is already known about the topic (Millers et al. 2012). Interviews are also
helpful in exploring the sensitive topics where individuals may not want to discuss them in a
group (Dilshad and Latif, 2013).
In this research the interviews will be constructed in a semi structured way to investigate about
the topic. It should be a flexible kind of interview where the participants are sometimes subjected
with open ended questions amidst the important questions, such that the respondents get enough
chance to express their beliefs and experiences (Maxwell 2012).
For this research proposal, 10-15 nurses from a health care setting in Korea will be taken
as the participants for the study. Predetermined questionnaire will be prepared for the
participants who were asked in a one - in one interview with the patients and the nurses (Dilshad
and Latif 2013).
The key feature of the focus group involves the active participation among the participants for
exploring their views and the beliefs (Boateng 2012). A focus group research is open ended and
cannot be predetermined. A focus group discussion is an excellent way to gather people from
related backgrounds to discuss about a specific subject (Grbich 2012).
One of the important features of the focus group is that the data is not based upon only
one opinion and generally consists of data resulting from the fruitful discussions between the

4IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
group members (Grbich 2012). One of the main advantages of the focus group is that a large
number of interactions on a specific topic can be observed in a very limited period of time. As
argued by Miles et al. (2013) focus groups are largely related to verbal interactions created or
managed by the researcher. Most of the data are self reported (Dilshad and Latif 2013). It has to
be kept in mind that if the focus groups are managed by the researcher, one can never get an idea
about the natural interactions. One of the significant advantages of using focus group is that, one
can understand the similarities and the differences of opinions among the participants.
In this research paper we will be using a focus group of 12 consisting of registered nurses,
patient representative and doctors with the view of understanding their opinion regarding the
impact of emotion in the decision making (Desteno et al. 2013). The group discussion will surely
bring up several issues that are faced by the health care professionals during decision making
(Grbich 2012). It can be guessed that, they should also up with their personal experiences, which
would help us to interpret and draw conclusions.
Data analysis techniques
There are normally two steps involved in the analysis of the qualitative data- coding and
the preliminary data analysis in the pattern of summary notes (Maxwell 2012). The clarity and
the applicability of the findings depend upon the analytic ability of the researcher. In this
research it is necessary to code what people are doing, the things that they are trying to
accomplish (Duque et al. 2013). According to (Dovidio and Fiske 2012) data coding of the
preliminary data analysis will focus exclusively on the themes and the sub themes that guides the
qualitative research (Maxwell 2012). There should be coding keywords in the document to code

5IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
the transcribed focus groups that will help the researcher to find information in the document that
needs to be coded.
A summary document is required in case of ethnographic interviews and focus groups. It
will contain the quotes as well as the explanation for the selection of the quote (Maxwell 2012).
This type of method provides flexibility in the analysis of the research (Fusch and Ness 2015).
However there is a disadvantage to use this process for quantitative data analysis, as selecting
codes from the data can turn out to be complicated, depending upon the nature of the topic. The
answers taken from the interview will be analyzed, coded and a summary will be made based on
the findings (Fusch and Ness 2015).
The data analysis method will actually help one to know the position of emotions in
decision making process among the nurses and the midwives. It can be estimated that this
approach will promise to be valuable and will give a better predictive model for the
customization and the construction of decision support tools for the health care professionals and
the clients.
Ethical issues
The important ethical issues that are to be kept in mind while taking up a qualitative
research are confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent (Ford and Richardson 2013). The
health care researchers who carry out qualitative research are entrusted with immense
responsibilities (Miller et al. 2012). Since there will not be statistical analysis of the data, the
researcher will have to assess and evaluate the data and the findings. Researchers are faced with
ethical issues in all the stages of the research (Duque et al. 2013). This research paper will
involve interviews with a specific focus group. Hence, the respondents should be well acquainted

6IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
with the purpose of the research and should give consent for the interviews. As the research is
about Korean health care, there are few things that the participants might not want to raise (Ford
and Richardson 2013). Hence it is necessary to maintain the confidentiality. The ethical concern
related to this research shall be approved by an authenticated organization. It is necessary to
inform the risks and the benefits of the experiment to the participants (Miller et al. 2012).
Delivering wrong information is equivalent to deception and hence should be avoided (Elwyn et
al. 2012). The participants should have the full rights to withdraw their participation as per their
wishes. Another ethical factor that has to be kept in mind is avoidance of harm (Ford and
Richardson 2013). While collecting data or conducting interviews, the participant's background
has to be changed and sensitive issues or questions that can harm their integrity should be
avoided.

7IMPACT OF EMOTION IN DECISION MAKING
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